


It's Only Love

by FinalFallenFantasy



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Angst, Funeral, Goodnight sweet friends, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kurt is a selfish boy, M/M, Todd is a Sad And Lonely Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28955742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinalFallenFantasy/pseuds/FinalFallenFantasy
Summary: The funeral was a simple affair (as stories often start). Todd didn't not go.
Relationships: Toad & Kurt Wagner, Toad/Kurt Wagner
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	It's Only Love

**Author's Note:**

> TW: major character death, mentions of choking kink, mentions of sex, secret relationships
> 
> Sorry guys, I had an angst fic inside me and didn't want it to leech over into Despair Is Less Abundant so I thought I'd smash it out real quick. Heavily inspired by Earthenwing/DK Archer's amazing angsty Kodd fics from a few years ago. If you haven't read her works, they are a feast of delight and pain.
> 
> Written whilst listening to Only Love by Mother Mother. FYI there is now a Toad/Nightcrawler playlist on Spotify comprising two OG fanmixes from the LJ community days and a few more songs added by both M and me!

The funeral had been a simple affair. Not many people remembered him from outside his life at the Institute, and there weren’t as many of them as there once were. Not many remembered that before the Nightcrawler had become a national posterboy for mutant rights, there had been a skinny little guy with too-smooth, air-thin pale skin and oddly blue dark hair whose fingers defied the eyes and whose legs always moved a little too fluidly. Maybe it was better that way.

Amanda had come, of course, because even after all this time she was still a sweet Catholic girl who remembered her first boyfriend as a goofy, good kid despite what had happened between them. Despite finding out the hard way that her sweet, innocent guy had been more interested in getting fucked in dingy motels by dirty boys with wide mouths and desperate eyes than in the chaste fumbling that was all they’d engaged in.

Kitty had been there, and Rogue, and they might have been the only people there who knew, really _knew_ , what Kurt got up to when he went away from the mansion, lived ‘alone’ for weeks and months and years. He’d seen them look sideways at each other more than once between their tears and stoic, chewed lips. They’d wondered where he was, why he didn’t show up even now. Jean, Scott, Xavier, none of them looked like they’d thought twice about it, even though they must have known somewhere what was going on.

Ten years. Ten years was a long time, especially when you were counting them, noting each one that passed like it was some kind of marker for success. Kurt had never counted them, because despite how sweet he seemed – how sweet he _was_ – he’d never really gotten past the idea that this was something clandestine, something unlawful and perhaps unforgivable.

Todd had counted every one. Sometimes it felt like he’d counted every day, each ticking second crawling across his skin like dragging fingernails, always waiting for the blow. He’d been left behind enough times to know what it looked like before it happened, and Kurt had looked like taking off every day since the first. He’d looked ready to run from the first moment he forced their lips together. Since the first time they’d fucked, ragged and raw and desperate and so lonely in their weird, freak bodies. He was always going to be temporary.

But he had stayed. After every gap of days or weeks or months, he always came back, tapping at Todd’s window wherever he was, tapping to be let in, to be loved like sin and fucked like it too. Tapping for forgiveness.

Ten years they’d danced around the idea of love and never quite stepped through the cold-water plunge to get there. And by the time ten years rolled around, Todd was so used to his whole body aching with it, trembling with the silent words mouthed into his own wrist when he came, so used to _hurting_ from how badly he craved to say it, he barely even noticed anymore. After all, ten years is a long time to hold a secret, especially one that felt like it was writ large, scrawled across his flesh every time he bared it. He knew Kurt could read it there, the stuttering, heartstopping confession traced between his pores, taste it when his tongue licked like fire over Todd’s dappled skin. He must have been able to feel it in his mouth when Todd kissed him like he was water, gripped him like a lifeline. Todd had never had anything to hold onto as hard as he held Kurt.

But they’d never taken that deep, brave breath and stepped across the threshold into honesty. And now they never would.

Todd had stayed away from the funeral, crouched in the treeline at the edge of the woodland cemetery Kurt’s parents had chosen, wearing Kurt’s old scarf that he’d broken back into the flat to steal because it had smelled like him. It didn’t anymore. He watched from behind the browning autumn leaves, stretched his hearing to catch murmuring strains of the proceedings. Kitty read the eulogy, broke down in tears halfway through and had Rogue finish it. They sang hymns half of them didn’t believe in, and Todd realised that he knew the words, these days. He’d never been big on religion, never went to church even the one time Kurt had dared to invite him, glorious eyes begging him to say no.

But Kurt had sung a lot, hummed phrases to himself as he cooked, and even if they hadn’t officially lived together at any point, Todd had made his home inside that lilting voice, found comfort and peace in the scraps of music he was given. So Todd knew the words now, and if he sang some of them too, who would know? After ten years of part-time domesticity he had a right to.

After the X Geeks had gone, taking Amanda with them, Todd had dropped from the trees and cautiously hopped to the mound of freshly turned earth. He stood in front of the white headstone, staring numbly at the pile of dirt and the sharp black words and the footprints in the damp grass. That was his boy down there. His…

He didn’t cry then, but he came close. A dry sob choked his throat, his shoulders hitched. Then they steadied again, as swiftly as they’d begun to shake, tension returning. Todd had a hard time crying – it didn’t come naturally to him after so long spending his grief on lying as still as he could, trying not to attract attention in crowded dorm rooms and foster homes, carefully rationing it a little at a time so it wouldn’t destroy him. This grief was like that, like a sword cutting his strings until all he could do was lie still again, staring into the blankness of the ceiling.

The sky was so bright it hurt his tired eyes, the vague, diffused light of an overcast day where no rain would fall. It was cold, but he didn’t feel it. His body had felt cold for weeks now; the external temperature had ceased to matter. It was Kitty who’d thought to call him. Her tearful, tight voice on the phone apologising over and over as it wavered in and out of earshot, explaining that _something had happened_ and _there was an accident_ and _Kurt_. Todd wasn’t sure he hadn’t lost it for a moment there, ears ringing with his fucking constant tinnitus even louder until it crashed out all other sound, swallowed it whole like he felt Kitty’s voice was swallowing him.

He didn’t know how she’d gotten his number. Maybe Kurt had given it to her, or maybe she’d asked Lance. But it meant something that she’d called. He could have gone on for months otherwise, not knowing. Surely that counted for something.

The wind picked up then, blowing handfuls of leaves from the trees and playing with them in little whirls. Todd thought of all those love songs, those songs of mourning, where people talked about feeling their lover’s breath on the wind, hearing their voice in storms. He bit down hard on his tongue. It wasn’t that, it wasn’t the wind or the occasional sun that penetrated through, it wasn’t any of that. It was all in his head, the ghost of warm arms around his shoulders, the viscerally imagined soft kiss pressed into his hair. He wished… Oh, he wished so _hard_. His whole self felt like an exposed nerve, raw and twitching and bloody in the harsh air, longing, _longing_ , for the soft caress of thick fingers, the warmth of that rich laugh, the teasing jab of a playful tail.

He clutched hard at his own arms to keep from shaking to pieces. Every atom felt like it was pulling away, trying to fly apart into nothing but air and screaming.

His dead eyes ran over the words on the stone again, simple and dignified. ‘Kurt Wagner. Beloved son and friend. Fly free, our angel.’ There was a word missing beside ‘son’ and ‘friend’, but Todd didn’t know what it should be. They’d never spoken about naming what they had, never referred to each other as ‘boyfriend’ or, even more absurd, ‘husband’. They were what they were, whatever it was. Even ‘lover’ wasn’t right, because Kurt had never let it be said, let it be known even between them.

Todd choked on another dry sob, chest heaving raggedly for a few sharp breaths. He coughed wetly.

‘You prick,’ he said quietly, eyes fierce on the mound of dirt. ‘You couldn’t fucking wait, could you? Couldn’t fucking hang back for fucking _once_.’ He wiped his nose furiously with the back of his hand. ‘Couldn’t- couldn’t fucking just… wait for backup. You fucking _asshole_.’ He aimed a kick at the earth and his ratty sneaker sank in almost to his ankle. ‘You have any fucking _idea_ , you fucking _bastard_? I was so… I was so fucking in love with you, dawg, I’da fuckin’- I would…’ He kicked the dirt again, more gently this time.

‘You have any idea how fuckin’ bad you fucked me up when were kids, yo? I was _fucked_ over you. It never fuckin’ stopped. I never… Every time you came back, every time you threw fucking _rocks_ at my fucking _window_ , you were just so fucking… You were so fucking selfish, dawg, and I couldn’t _fucking_ say no. I should have _killed_ you, you fucking cunt.’ He drew in a ragged breath and sank into a crouch, pressing his fists tightly over his burning eyes.

‘I fucking- I loved you _so fucking much_ , and I never fucking- because you were too fuckin’ chickenshit to even _tell_ anyone about me, about us. Ten _years_ , dawg. Other folks were off gettin’ fuckin’ married an’ havin’ kids an’ shit, sorting their fuckin’ _lives_ out and where were we? Still fucking on your fuckin’ single bed in your fuckin’ apartment and out in cheap, shitty motels because you couldn’t pull your head out of your fucking ass. And now what? I can’t even show up to your fucking funeral cos God forbid you ever even hint to your fuckin’ parents that you ain’t just the good little Catholic boy, that maybe you fucking loved it when I…’

More choked sobs came then, and Todd pushed himself to his feet, pacing angrily away from the grave before coming back. He felt like his heart was tied to an elastic band around that headstone.

‘I hate you,’ he said, and it felt wrong, but he meant it. It had always been easier to say that than the alternative.

He crouched again by the grave, ran his fingers through his greasy hair. Chainsmoked an entire packet. He didn’t cry. As the sun began to set, he finally left.

The storm rolled in that evening, lightning streaking across the sky like the very gods were raging. Todd drove fast, rain pouring across the windscreen like he was Moses parting the fucking sea. Thunder rolled overhead but he barely heard it over the rattle of the engine, the hissing of the water running over the car. He didn’t know where he was going, and where he’d been since leaving the cemetery was a blur. All that mattered was he kept driving, kept moving.

His brain was filled with numb static, interrupted by staccato, rapidfire memories in chain reactions like a collapsing house of cards.

The tapping at his window after too long apart. The scent of warm fur on the good mornings, the ones where they’d woken up sleepy and gentle and so vulnerable it hurt. The quiet strains of Kurt’s voice from his pokey little kitchen when he made breakfast; glancing in through the door to see that naked, blue butt wiggling as he danced to his own voice. The tapping at his window. The flashing anger in those glowing eyes when they fought, when Todd crept intentionally or unintentionally over the constantly shifting lines. The tapping of pebbles and fingernails against his window. The tapping.

Finally, one thunderclap sounded above the rampant noise of the engine, and it sounded so like _him_ , so like his sudden arrival, so like the vacuum-rush sound of Kurt _coming home_ , that Todd lost it. His shoulders shook noiselessly for a few moments, hands trembling on the wheel before finally, loud, ugly gasps wracked his frame and his vision blurred and hitched and went even darker.

He pulled over and killed the engine and sat there, fingers gripping the wheel like it was a lifeline, and he cried so hard his throat stopped up, aching like there was a hand clenching around it, his whole body shaking so hard it felt almost frightening. He hadn’t known he could cry like this anymore, like a little kid, like an open wound. He hadn’t known how much it hurt to do it. _Everything_ hurt, from his frozen hands on the steering wheel to his feet pressed tight to the floor, his throat strangling like Fuzzy’s fucking hand was pressing hard against his windpipe, harder than it ever had in life even when Todd had squirmed and begged and yowled like a cat in heat. His head pounded, heart too.

Somewhere out there, somewhere warm and with friends, Kitty was probably crying too. And even if she was quieter about it, with bitten lips and sore cheeks from sucking on grief like it was a slice of lemon, Rogue probably was too. From what Todd knew of Kurt’s parents they were probably putting on a brave and comforting face for the girls, and only later in the privacy of their own room would they dissolve, his father first and then ‘Mutti’ straight after because she couldn’t hold back once her husband started. He wondered how it was possible to know so much about people who probably had no idea he even existed. How could you tell someone that? After ten years? There was no way.

Todd sat out there in the night and the storm for a long time, wrapped in the scarf that didn't smell like Kurt anymore.


End file.
